


Libertà sorge, crollan tirannidi

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV), Poirot - Agatha Christie, The Hour
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Classical Music, Fluff and Angst, Gen, London, Operas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: London, 1964. Miss Honoria Bulstrode goes to the opera, and indulges her human curiosity.





	Libertà sorge, crollan tirannidi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/gifts), [Lucyemers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucyemers/gifts).



> This is excessively and almost shamelessly self-indulgent because I have a lot of feelings about how _The Hour_ references _Tosca_ , explicitly and otherwise. And since the divine Callas sang the role in '60s London...! Miss Bulstrode comes from Agatha Christie's _Cat Among The Pigeons_ , so this fic is a gift for those who join me in the belief that Hercule Poirot inhabits the same London as the fearless journalists of _The Hour_.
> 
> This is the scene from _Tosca_ in which the tenor is tortured and subsequently defies the baritone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyplHIYAUe4 and this is the recording featured on The Hour in which he imagines his lover in what he believes to be his last moments of life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50afi2Q4a5Y. And this, for your listening pleasure, is an entire performance from the run described in this fic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6epBolihE0.

It is rare that Honoria Bulstrode journeys up to London during term-time. But the headmistress has loved the opera since her own days as a schoolgirl; and Callas’ Tosca is a thing not to be missed. She sits very upright in her seat, this elegant, steel-haired woman, and politely avoids staring at the young couple who slip in next to her a few minutes before the lights dim. She does know enough of clothes to admire the cut of the blonde woman’s blue frock—and enough of opera-goers to admire the silence in which they take their seats. Miss Bulstrode gives herself over to the glorious crescendo of the first act. As always, she admires the ease with which Puccini moves from the high political drama of the fugitive, to the passions of the painter who saves him, and who flirts with his lover between the images of the Virgin and the Magdalene. But it is, of course, Scarpia’s entrance that galvanizes the plot. Though arch in flirtation, it is in jealousy that Tosca comes most passionately alive, her grief dangerous to others as well as to herself—and igniting the passions of the suave and unscrupulous Scarpia. 

In the interval between the first and second acts, Miss Bulstrode catches her breath, and finds the air thick with anticipation. Reaching for the program which has slipped to her feet, she finds that the ankles of the man and woman next to her are intertwined. Well! one can hardly say it’s indecent, in the dark. With a professional habit of observing people, Miss Bulstrode finds herself intrigued by the two next to her. The woman wears no ring; but they sit with a shared ease and shared silence rare in those who are not sure of each other. The man sits with one hand resting in her lap, tracing patterns on her palm. Their fingers lace as the conductor returns to the rostrum.

With the audience and the drama wrought to a state of almost unbearable tension—Puccini moves them into a supper-room where Scarpia is completely at ease. The largest problem in the world might be the tardiness of a diva, the worst consequence the fact that the lute players will have to fill time, waiting for the cantata. But this facade starts to crumble as the interrogation of the political provocateur, begins to become violent. The baritone’s threat rings through the opera house; the cellos shudder; and the young woman’s start is convulsive. Miss Bulstrode—ordinarily resentful of distractions at the opera—is sympathetic to the nerves of the woman next to her. She has always found the second act of Tosca gripping; and Cioni is in fine form tonight. But it is not the tenor they have come to hear. It is the woman who paces the Baron Scarpia’s elegant supper room like a caged tigress. It is the diva whose voice rises above the strings, anguished, magnificent. She is tortured—it is impossible not to believe it—by the knowledge that her lover is at the mercy of the man who leers at her, in the hands of the thugs who report his resistance. The baritone almost purrs his menaces; Callas snarls her contempt. The orchestra holds its breath; the audience members hold theirs. Callas sobs her desperate pleas to the baritone; and then the tenor screams. And something else happens next to Miss Bulstrode. The young woman has taken her companion’s head into her lap. An instant Miss Bulstrode fears he is going to be sick. But her neighbors are once again motionless… and the events on stage do not permit of long distractions. “Murderer!” cries the diva, magnificent. They bring out Cioni again, his shirt disarranged, his head bloodied. And Callas, as Tosca, is moving with the swiftness of a lover’s instincts, with the swiftness of the leopard to which Scarpia compares her, to take her lover in her arms, to support him, to caress him. This time of her own volition, Miss Bulstrode glances at the couple next to her. One of the woman’s hands is buried in his hair; the other grips his shoulder. Miss Bulstrode looks to the stage again, and wonders. Cavaradossi delivers his last, splendid challenge, and seals his own fate in so doing; he is dragged off by the thugs, a breathing dead man. His defiances are succeeded by the broken phrases of the orchestra, the anguish of the soprano. Gobbi, as Scarpia, really does make one shiver: this prosperous, confident man, his brutality dissembled under a mask of civility that seems somehow perfectly crafted, and yet never perfectly successful.

Miss Bulstrode draws her first even breath after the curtain has fallen over the baron’s corpse. Magnificent, magnificent… the headmistress’ pulse is quickened, her color heightened. For such moments as this, she feels, does one brave the London buses and the steps to the cramped amphitheater seats, for the knowledge that sometimes everything is ignited to this extraordinary pitch, where every note sung seems the inevitable and natural expression of the heart. Miss Bulstrode takes a deep breath. And as she comes back to earth, she remembers her fellow audience members. Almost shyly she looks over at the young woman to whom this gift has also been vouchsafed. She finds her still sitting with her eyes closed, her face—Miss Bulstrode would swear—pale, as well as wet with tears.

“ _Tosca_ perhaps not the best choice,” says the young woman, her voice shaken.

“Nonsense,” says a faint baritone from the other side of her; the tone is light, but his voice, too, trembles. “Nonsense. It was splendid. Sublime. Choose whatever word you like.”

“But Freddie, darling…”

“I know. It’s all right. It’s all right, now.” There is a moment of silence. “Look at us,” says the man softly. “Look at us, here, together. You are exquisite.”

“I’m proud to be seen with you.”

It is when the man leans across to kiss his companion that Miss Bulstrode sees his scars. Starting like a guilty thing, she attempts to devote her full attention to her program.

The bells of Rome ring out in the cold dawn over the battlements of Sant’Angelo; a clarinet, infinitely mournful, succeeds the clear shepherd’s piping. And the man with less than an hour to live, who is prompted to think of his death, to think of his soul, is possessed entirely by thoughts of the woman he loves: in a fragrant garden, the scent of her; the shape of her in his arms. When she reappears, it is a miracle; they are torn between ecstatic celebration and, for her, the haunting memory of her desperation. And he comforts her, and they imagine their future together—interminably happy, suffused with love—until the last moment. Until the shots. _Not like this_ , she pleads over his body, calling him by name, telling him she is his. His, still; and most magnificently herself on the battlements, as she jumps, declaring her defiance before the face of God.

The audience is shocked into a moment of silence before the applause, which goes on even after they have gotten their breath back. At last Miss Bulstrode rises; the couple rises; the man gasps. Miss Bulstrode has barely time to take it in before the young woman is clutching for a support that does not exist; Miss Bulstrode extends her arm, and the three of them stand, bound together, swaying. Miss Bulstrode is suddenly and vertiginously aware of how steep the rows of seats below them are, how easy would be the fall. 

“Sorry,” says the man, adding between clenched teeth, “It hardly ever—does this—now.” 

“The rows are very narrow,” says the young woman soothingly, “and we’ve had to sit cramped. That’ll be it.” And to Miss Bulstrode, over her shoulder: “Thank you; I’m so sorry; I was caught off-guard…” 

“That’s quite all right,” says Miss Bulstrode, with the formal courtesy that has managed to suggest to countless students, countless parents, that their current small crises were quite within the range of expected events, and no cause for alarm. 

“An innocent bystander?” The man looks over his companion’s shoulder, which he has been grasping. “I do apologize.” His grin is disarming; the fine-drawn distress beneath it Miss Bulstrode can tactfully ignore; she hopes her smile is not too shaky. 

“Not at all,” she murmurs. 

“Here,” says the woman, “I’ll just…” She drops to her haunches with surprising swiftness; her husband—they must be married, Miss Bulstrode has concluded, ring or no ring—steadies her and himself without apparent self-consciousness, hands resting lightly on her shoulders as she vigorously attacks the knotted muscles. 

“A splendid performance,” says the young man. “Sorry about the anticlimax.” 

“Not at all,” echoes Miss Bulstrode; “yes, quite splendid. Cioni is not Corelli’s equal, of course, but Callas…” 

“Mm. Scarpia’s leopard and Cavaradossi’s good and gentle lover—ah! there…” His first cry made Miss Bulstrode half-reach for his arm again, but the woman is standing up fluidly, pressing his hand before retrieving her bag. 

“Yes, quite,” says Miss Bulstrode, as they begin their progress to the end of the row. The young man’s lurch alarms her, but his companion shuffles sedately in his wake. “And Scarpia—I confess I sometimes don’t find him adequately plausible, but tonight…” 

“Horrible,” says the young woman, too quickly. “A magnificent performance, of course… but too real, somehow. When there are such men…” 

“But that is, surely, part of the point,” says Miss Bulstrode. They are on the stairs, the young man swinging stiff-legged along in their wake. “Their sacrifice would be mere melodrama otherwise. Scarpia’s reality gives it substance. It is more than youthful idealism that makes Cavaradossi cry out to condemn him, when he can barely speak; more than self-involved suffering that makes Tosca accuse him of being a demon, of torturing souls.” 

“What do you think it is?” asks the young woman. 

“A belief in speaking the truth,” says Miss Bulstrode, unhesitatingly. “A belief that speaking the truth holds an essential power. And that it is their duty—whatever the risk—to use it.” 

They have reached the landing, and the young man has paused, breathing hard, gripping the handrail. “Brava,” says he. “There we all agree.” 

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” says the young woman quietly. “I sometimes fear it’s a rare belief.” 

“It may be,” says Miss Bulstrode dryly. “It may be, indeed. But one must do one’s best to see that it spreads.” 

“Yes…” The young woman’s clear eyes have quickened into interest. “May I ask what it is that you do?” 

Miss Bulstrode smiles a quick, winged smile. “I am headmistress,” she says, “of Meadowbank School. Honoria Bulstrode.” 

“Bel Rowley. It’s a pleasure. BBC, producer,” she adds, as if diffidently; but she flushes with pride. 

“Frederick Lyon.” His handshake is surprisingly strong. “Factotum. We’ll bear Meadowbank in mind.” 

“Do,” says Miss Bulstrode graciously; “good night.” 

It is only after she has successfully hailed a cab that she remembers where she has heard that name before. Lyon—a blurry newspaper photograph of a man with a cane and an eyepatch, frightened and resolute; and, earlier, a very different young man, a face on the television, a voice incisive, eager, thrilling. The young woman’s is a name glimpsed only in blurry block letters on the screen… and how much work behind that one line! thinks Miss Bulstrode, reflecting on her own spare letterhead. She yields to impulse and turns; they are only now at the base of the opera steps, but their hands are intertwined and their faces are radiant. Miss Bulstrode tells herself she is growing far too inquisitive in her old age; and she makes a mental note to look out for the Rowley-Lyon girl.


End file.
